Why YouTube is the new children’s TV… and why it matters

Little Baby Bum has helped YouTube become even more popular with kids.

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Kids are generating billions of video views on the online video service, but it’s raising some talking points for parents

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From Minecraft builds to YouTube videos – not to mention YouTube videos of Minecraft builds – children in 2015 have plenty of options for digital entertainment.

YouTube, in particular, has emerged as an alternative to traditional children’s TV – although it’s probably more accurate to say that the two are merging: plenty of popular children’s TV shows are now on YouTube in some form, while to young viewers – many on tablets – it’s all just “video”.

With the launch of its YouTube Kids app in the UK and Ireland, the company is hoping to capitalise, but this being YouTube – owned by Google – it’s also kicking up a debate about its motivations, as well as familiar arguments about children and screen time.

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Is YouTube in the driving seat, or its young viewers?

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For critics of YouTube, it’s tempting to see YouTube Kids as an example of the company identifying children as the next group it wants to target. In truth, the app is more about YouTube catching up to the behaviour of the children who’ve flocked to its service.

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The 20 top children’s channels had more than 5.2bn views in October alone, from Little Baby Bum’s 428.5m to Toys and Funny Kids Surprise Eggs’ 164.7m

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YouTube is reacting to the fact that tens of millions of children are already watching. It is a necessary move to avoid children seeing inappropriate videos and ads, as well as being exposed to its frequently toxic comments section.

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YouTube Kids bars non-child-friendly ads; uses algorithms to filter out inappropriate videos – with a flagging system for parents to warn it about any that slip through the net – and strips out the comments.

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Should parents use YouTube as a ‘digital babysitter’?

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The phrase “digital babysitter” crops up regularly in comments about children and YouTube. It’s often framed as a criticism of parents: leaving their children in the corner of a room with an iPad doing the parenting.

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In some ways, this argument doesn’t ring true. First, even an hour spent watching YouTube leaves plenty of hours in the day for reading books, riding bikes, drawing and generally getting the kind of face-to-face parental attention that’s so important for children.

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Second, because YouTube doesn’t have to be something a child does alone: co-viewing can be a fun activity for them to share with their parent. And thirdly: sometimes parents just need to get stuff done. YouTube, like television, can buy the short bursts of time that a parent or carer needs to keep things running. But also like television, it needs boundaries

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How comfortable are we with advertising to children?

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YouTube Kids does carry advertising. YouTube says it is carefully screened to bar ads that aren’t child-friendly. Even so, the advertising aspect has been controversial in the US, where several consumer groups called in April for regulator the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the app.

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Their complaints were less about the paid ads that run in between videos, and more about videos that blur the boundaries between entertainment and advertising. First, in the case of channels for brands such as Barbie, McDonald’s and Fisher-Price that arguably function as ads for their products and services.

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Second, in the case of the hugely popular genre of “unboxing” videos that has emerged on YouTube – toys being unboxed and shown off at length – there’s the question of whether the channel owners are being paid by any of the toy companies to include their products.

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The first of those complaints is a tough one: can YouTube really treat channels for, say, Lego or My Little Pony as ads when those brands have popular and enjoyable shows on traditional TV?

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The second? That’s more troubling, less for behind-the-scenes payments we don’t know about – they’re wrong, but the advertising regulators are already sniffing around the issue – and more for the content itself. Is the sight of children hypnotised by 30-minute unboxing videos of Disney or Barbie toys (or even Kinder Eggs) really something to celebrate?

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It feels like uncomfortably naked consumerism calculated to generate pester-power from its young audience. As a parent, I’m hoping YouTube Kids doesn’t promote these channels – which are probably easier to sell ads around – ahead of some of the stories, music and educational videos on the service.

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How much tracking is too much tracking?

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YouTube – and Google – tracking the online behaviour of children is a can of worms, to say the least. That’s why YouTube is so keen on stressing that YouTube Kids is a “signed-out” experience: children don’t sign in with their own or a parent’s Google/YouTube account, and it does not collect any personal data.

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It does collect some data, though. “We keep watch history associated with the app so we can offer content recommendations based on that watch history,” a spokesperson said. “For example, a lot of kids like to re-watch their favourite videos and we want to make it easy for them to return to those videos and find other similar videos.” That watch history can be deleted by parents in the app’s settings menu.

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Anything involving tracking children’s online behaviour raises warning bells with parents – and with regulators, given the varying laws around the world on this area. Are you comfortable with YouTube logging your child’s watch history? Maybe not. Would it be nice if the app understood what videos and channels they liked, and recommended more like them? Maybe yes. So which is more important to you?

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The main thing isto understand exactly what is and isn’t being tracked; and have the ability to control that data. And if YouTube ever changes its approach – for example, if it were to start using that watch history to target ads – it should explain it and provide an opt-out.

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Stampy’s Wonder Quest mixed Minecraft and science.

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Is the new children’s TV actually any good?

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YouTube has already spawned new formats for children’s entertainment – even if they are sometimes baffling for people outside their target audiences. Many parents still don’t understand why watching Stampy or Diamond Minecart Dan play Minecraft is as appealing for many children as playing it themselves, for example.

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There are many positive things about what’s happening on YouTube. Stampy’s spin-off channel Wonder Quest was an interesting attempt to bring a more educational aspect to Minecraft videos – not to mention a scripted drama.

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When Aardman brought its classic Morph character back, it was as shortform episodes on YouTube. Meanwhile, educational channels like Whiz Kid Science, Ted Ed and The Slow Mo Guys – the latter isn’t just for children – show plenty of potential for sparky shortform learning.

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YouTube doesn’t say how many of its 1bn+ viewers are children, but it’s safe to bet that it’s already the biggest children’s entertainment platform in the world. Hopefully, it will use that power through YouTube Kids to nurture – including sometimes to fund – a hotbed of creative, interesting shows that complement the best available on traditional TV channels.

The competition will mean the next generation will be spoiled for choice on their screens. But again, it will fall to their parents and carers to ensure they don’t go square-eyed through the lack of other kinds of activities.